July 25/12 20:21 pm - Canadian Women Get First look at Olympic Road Course

Posted by Editoress on 07/25/12

Today, Canada's Olympic women's road team - Clara Hughes, Joelle Numainville and Denise Ramsden - got their first look at the Olympic road course; specifically, the circuit around the Box Hill climb. The Canadian road team is staying out near the course for a few days of training, to avoid the long commute from the Athlete Village (two hours). Ryder Hesjedal, Canada's only man for the Road events, also arrived today, meeting with a scrum of reporters at St Pancras rail station, where he arrived on the Eurostar train. Hesjedal said that he has been training well, and believes he has managed to maintain the form he came into the Tour with, despite the huge crash that took him out of the race after stage 6.

We spoke for a few minutes with Denise Ramsden about the course.

Canadian Cyclist: The main question is - what's your impressions of the road course?

Denise Ramsden: I think it's going to be a pretty tough course. Typical European roads; narrow. The Box Hill circuit's pretty tough, the climb itself drags on for a long time over the top, and the downhill is pretty fast after. I think it will be more difficult than people said originally.

CC: Now that you are there, is it starting to sink in that you are at the Olympics.

DR: Yeah, it is, but I think it will more once we get to the Village on Friday. Right now we've got all our clothes and everything, but hanging out in a hotel, it's more like a normal race right now.

CC: You've been doing some European races, so how is your form, heading into the last couple of days?

DR: It was good prep. Most of the women who will be at the Olympics were there, so it was good training. Tomorrow we'll get a chance to really try out the climb, so I'm looking forward to seeing how I'm going.